Scam porn extortion email: 'LAST WARNING ! You have the last chance to save your social life - I am not kidding!'

Scam porn extortion email: 'LAST WARNING ! You have the last chance to save your social life - I am not kidding!'

With news stories of hacking into credit card companies, Facebook accounts, email accounts, cell phones being hacked and more, scammers are busy trying to take advantage of fears of being hacked. While it certainly is possible to have all of these hacked, many scammers simply prey upon consumers' fear of being hacked to extort their victims into surrendering money. The FBI is seeing an increase in the number of reported extortion attempts of a sexual nature; what's known as sextortion. In one recent month, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, received an additional 13,000 complaints about the sextortion scam over the previous months. Sextortion occurs when someone threatens to distribute your private and sensitive material if you don't provide them with images of a sexual nature, sexual favors, or money.

Here is a common, and unfortunately, popular example of this.

The email

A victim receives an email similar to the one below. In this email, the scammer claims:

1. You visited a porn website.
2. He installed software on porn to allow him to hack your device (computer, tablet, phone). He says that allowed  "your browser initiated working as a RDP that has a key logger which gave me access to your screen and also web camera"
3. His software "collected your complete contacts from your Messenger, Facebook, as well as emailaccount"
4. He activated the camera on your device and recorded you watching porn and created a split screen video of you and the porn.
5. He can tell that you read the email
6. He can't be traced.

After making these claims, he then issues his threats: you pay him by bitcoin or he will send the video to everyone in your contact list.

 

Example scam email:

From: Anonymous Hacker - Vida [mailto:vida307@e.anonymouswatchers.ml]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2019 1:55 AM
To:
Subject: This is my last warning !

 

LAST WARNING !

 

You have the last chance to save your social life - I am not kidding!!

 

I give you the last 72 hours to make the payment before I send

the video with your masturbation to all your friends and associates.

 

The last time you visited a erotic website with young Teens,

you downloaded and installed the software I developed.

 

My program has turned on your camera and recorded your act of

Masturbation and the video you were masturbating to.

My software also downloaded all your email contact lists

and a list of your Facebook friends.

 

I have both the '.mp4' with your masturbation

and a file with all your contacts on my hard drive.

You are very perverted!

 

If you want me to delete both files and keep your secret,

you must send me Bitcoin payment. I give you the last 72 hours.

If you don't know how to send Bitcoins, visit Google.

 

Send 2000 USD to this Bitcoin address immediately:

 

(copy and paste)

 

1 BTC = 3470 USD right now, so send exactly 0.583156 BTC

to the address above.

 

Do not try to cheat me!

As soon as you open this Email I will know you opened it.

 

This Bitcoin address is linked to you only,

so I will know if you sent the correct amount.

When you pay in full, I will remove both files and deactivate my software.

 

If you don't send the payment, I will send your masturbation video

to ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES from your contact list I hacked.

 

Here are the payment details again:

 

Send 0.583156 BTC to this Bitcoin address:

 

----------------------------------------

----------------------------------------

 

 

You саn visit the police but nobody will help you.

I know what I am doing.

I don't live in your country and I know how to stay anonymous.

 

Don't try to deceive me - I will know it immediately - my spy ware is

recording all the websites you visit and all keys you press.

If you do - I will send this ugly recording to everyone you know,

including your family.

 

Don't cheat me! Don't forget the shame and if you ignore this message

your life will be ruined.

 

I am waiting for your Bitcoin payment.

 

Vida

Anonymous Hacker

 

 

P.S. If you need more time to buy and send 0.583156 BTC,

open your notepad and write '48h plz'.

I will consider giving you another 48 hours before I release the vid,

but only when I really see you are struggling to buy bitcoin.

The truth

Notice that except for your email address, all of the information is vague, general and definitely not specific to you. Notice also that he provides no proof or evidence of his claims. It's pretty obvious that if you were to attempt to extort someone like this, you would provide at least a brief clip of the video you claimed to have to prove that you could follow through. This is an obvious sign of the scam nature.  Of course, if you don't visit porn websites, then you would also obviously know immediately this is a scam. Unless of course, you believe you watch porn in your sleep ("somnapornography" )

While all of the claims are theoretically possible, it would take a pretty sophisticated scammer to achieve this.  And a scammer like that is not going to target individuals; they'll go after corporations and bigger targets.

Variations

Some versions of the scam, like the one above, include one of the recipient's real passwords as "proof" that their claims are true. Criminals are sending emails and letters using their victims' authentic personally identifiable information to make their claims appear legitimate.  How did they get your password? Most like they bought a list of usernames and passwords on the "dark web" from other hackers from a data breach like the ones you've heard about in the news: Experian, Yahoo, Wells Fargo, etc.  Which means they are using a cut and paste program to send out thousands, or even millions of the scams.

What to do

• First, do NOT reply to the scammer.

• Do NOT pay the scammer.

• Never send compromising images of yourself to anyone, no matter who they are or who they say they are.

• Do not open attachments from people you do not know.

• Turn off your electronic devices and web cameras - and cover or physically disconnect web cameras when you are not using them.

• Report the scammer to Bitcoin (see below)

Report the scammer to Bitcoin

How To Report a Bitcoin Scam, Blackmail, Extortion or Theft:

1. Create a free account on Bitcoin (you need this to report a scam to them; it costs nothing and you don't need to give them any sensitive information; just an email address so they can get back to you)

2. Thenlogin on Bitcoin

3. Enter the bitcoin address in the box on this page

4. Then click the "Report Scam" button on the page that comes up in step 3 (not here) (it looks like this: )

If you are receiving sextortion threats, you are not alone. The FBI says in many sextortion cases, the perpetrator is an adult pretending to be a teenager, and you are just one of the many victims being targeted by the same person. If you believe you're a victim of sextortion, or know someone else who is, the FBI wants to hear from you:

Contact your local FBI office (or toll-free at 1-800-CALL-FBI).

Next, the FBI recommends that if you have experienced this situation please notify the IC3 by filing a complaint.

If the email contains information that identifies you personally (other than your email address alone; for example, address, complete name, etc.) you should contact your local or state police and local FBI office.

If you also forward a copy of the emails you receive here, we will examine them as well.

 

• To see another version of this scam, click here.

• And another version: Porn watching extortion scam, version 3

 

For a comprehensive list of national and international agencies to report scams, see this page.